The Key to Rebecca - Ken Follett [87]
Elene considered. She could leave him now, and she would be safe—she would never see him again. That was what she wanted, to get away from the man forever. She thought: But I’m Vandam’s only hope. What do I care for Vandam? I’d be happy never to see him again, and go back to the old peaceful life—
The old life.
She did care for Vandam, she realized; at least enough for her to hate the thought of letting him down. She had to stay with Wolff, cultivate him, angle for another date, try to find out where he lived.
Impulsively she said: “Let’s go to your place.”
He raised his eyebrows. “That’s a sudden change of heart.”
She realized she had made a mistake. “I’m confused,” she said. “You sprung a surprise on me. Why didn’t you ask me first?”
“I only thought of the idea an hour ago. It didn’t occur to me that it might scare you.”
Elene realized that she was, unintentionally, fulfilling her role as a dizzy girl. She decided not to overplay her hand. “All right,” she said. She tried to relax.
Wolff was studying her. He said: “You’re not quite as vulnerable as you seem, are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I remember what you said to Aristopoulos, that first day I saw you in the shop.”
Elene remembered: she had threatened to cut off Mikis’ cock if he touched her again. She should have blushed, but she could not do so voluntarily. “I was so angry,” she said.
Wolff chuckled. “You sounded it,” he said. “Try to bear in mind that I am not Aristopoulos.”
She gave him a weak smile. “Okay.”
He turned his attention to the driver. They were out of the city, and Wolff began to give directions. Elene wondered where he had found this taxi: by Egyptian standards it was luxurious. It was some kind of American car, with big soft seats and lots of room, and it seemed only a few years old.
They passed through a series of villages, then turned onto an unmade road. The car followed the winding track up a small hill and emerged on a little plateau atop a bluff. The river was immediately below them, and on its far side Elene could see the neat patchwork of cultivated fields stretching into the distance until they met the sharp tan-colored line of the edge of the desert.
Wolff said: “Isn’t this a lovely spot?”
Elene had to agree. A flight of swifts rising from the far bank of the river drew her eye upward, and she saw that the evening clouds were already edged in pink. A young girl was walking away from the river with a huge water jug on her head. A lone felucca sailed upstream, propelled by a light breeze.
The driver got out of the car and walked fifty yards away. He sat down, pointedly turning his back on them, lit a cigarette and unfolded a newspaper.
Wolff got a picnic hamper out of the trunk and set it on the floor of the car between them. As he began to unpack the food, Elene asked him: “How did you discover this place?”
“My mother brought me here when I was a boy.” He handed her a glass of wine. “After my father died, my mother married an Egyptian. From time to time she would find the Muslim household oppressive, so she would bring me here in a gharry and tell me about ... Europe, and so on.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
He hesitated. “My mother had a way of spoiling things like that. She was always interrupting the fun. She used to say: ‘You’re so selfish, just like your father.’ At that age I preferred my Arab family. My stepbrothers were wicked, and nobody tried to control them. We used to steal oranges from other people’s gardens, throw stones at horses to make them bolt, puncture bicycle tires ... Only my mother minded, and all she could do was warn us that we’d get punished eventually. She was always saying that—‘They’ll catch you one day, Alex!’ ”
The mother was right, Elene thought: they would catch Alex one day.
She was relaxing. She wondered whether Wolff was carrying the knife he had used in Assyut, and that made her tense again. The situation was so normal—a charming man taking a girl on a picnic beside the river—that for a moment she had forgotten she wanted something from him.
She said: “Where do you